The Daily Populous Friday June 6th, 2025 morning edition
Authored by cnbc.com and submitted by spherocytes

Elon Musk reacts during a press event with U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured), at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 30, 2025.

Shares of Tesla fell 14% on Thursday as President Donald Trump threatened to pull government contracts for CEO Elon Musk's companies, escalating a war of words over the spending bill.

The move dropped the EV maker $152 billion in value, the biggest hit to its market cap ever, putting it below the $1 trillion benchmark and settling Thursday at $916 billion.

"Elon was 'wearing thin,' I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump spoke from the Oval Office earlier Thursday and said Musk was upset that EV credits were not included in the bill.

"Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore," Trump said in the Oval Office on Thursday. "I was surprised."

"Whatever," Musk fired back as the president spoke.

"Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate," he posted on X.

Musk, the world's richest man, in recent days has threatened to make lawmakers who vote for the bill face primary elections and called the bill a "disgusting abomination," marking a significant shift in his comments about the administration.

KaJaHa on June 5th, 2025 at 18:11 UTC »

Come on, Musk. You gonna let him manipulate your precious stock price like that? Go scorched earth and show Trump who the real man here is.

Do it do it do it do it do it

Spinoza42 on June 5th, 2025 at 18:05 UTC »

So Musk has first lost the sympathy of a significant part of his traditional consumer base, and now also the support of a corrupt government and people who theoretically might want to buy a Tesler to "own the libs".

internetlad on June 5th, 2025 at 18:02 UTC »

Imagine being able to piss off left, right AND center voters. That's a shitheel hat trick baby!